Excitement, effort highlight first day of spring football at Kennesaw State

Mack left his job as running backs coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars to take the Kennesaw State job in December. In the short time after his hiring, Mack has brought in 33 new faces from the transfer portal and high school graduation. Twenty of the newcomers were early enrollees and are in camp now.

Now that Mack has most of the pieces in place — although others could be added when the transfer portal opens again later this spring — he and his staff will begin the process of installing the new systems and completing the changeover from the former staff.

“I’d love to see our players just continue to get better on a day-to-day basis,” Mack said. “Every day, every chance we get on the grass, every chance we get in the meeting room, we want to come out better than we come into it. My expectation is that Wednesday we will come back out here better than today. Hopefully by the end of spring they’ll have an understanding of the standard of how we operate and what’s going to be acceptable and not acceptable.”

Many eyes are on the quarterback situation this spring. Incumbent quarterback Davis Bryson is being moved to wide receiver and one of three transfers is expected to secure the job this spring — Amari Odom, a transfer from Wofford, Dexter Williams, a transfer from Georgia Southern, or even Skyler Williams, a freshman from Warner Robins. Sophomore holdovers Preston Clemmer and Lucas Scheerhorn also are in the mix.

“I think everybody — including the quarterbacks — has a long way to go,” Mack said. “We’ve got to do a great job of just continuing to bring that group along. I was impressed with the basic fundamentals of what we’re doing, but we’ve got to keep those guys coming along, because as they go, our team goes for the most part.”

Bryson already has impressed the staff with his ability to run routes, use leverage and catch the ball.

“He’s a smart player because he understands the whole game and what we’re trying to do from a 10,000-foot view,” Mack said. “And playing quarterback the last couple of years, he’s kind of been a leader of this team, and we’re going to continue to see that.”

Mack said the staff would be “very aggressive” in how they install the new schemes and procedures, but didn’t want to put a finger on the exact amount of the system would be mastered over the next month.

“So, it may be 60%, it may be 70%. It really doesn’t matter as long as they can execute whatever percentage we put in at a very high level,” he said.

Kennesaw State opens the regular season Aug. 29 at Wake Forest.